33 Quotes by Benjamin Zander

I have a definition of success...

Would you think of somebody who you adore, who’s no longer there? A beloved grandmother, a lover – somebody in your life who you love with all your heart, but that person is no longer with you. Bring that person into your mind, and at the same time follow the line all the way from B to E, and you’ll hear everything that Chopin had to say.

It’s not a question of how much power you can hoard for yourself, but how much you can give away.

He had realized that the labels he had been taking so seriously are human inventions – it’s all a game. The Number 68 is invented and the A is invented, so we might as well choose to invent something that brightens our life and the lives of the people around us.

I settled on a game called I am a contribution. Unlike success and failure, contribution has no other side. It is not arrived at by comparison.

Right. So if the eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it. If the eyes are not shining, you get to ask a question. And this is the question: who am I being that my players’ eyes are not shining? We can do that with our children, too. Who am I being, that my children’s eyes are not shining? That’s a totally different world.